The 1920s
A New Culture Emerges
A New Urban Culture
• After WWI, a change in attitudes/culture
occurred in America.
• Mostly in cities.
• This was the 1st time in US History that
there were more people living in cities
rather than the country.
Names Given to New Culture
• The Roaring 20s.
• The Jazz Age
The Old Victorian Culture
• Small town ideals were predominant.
• Central was the idea of Self-Making.
– Hard Work + Proper Moral living = success.
• People were supposed to emulate their
parents (especially women).
New Urban Attitudes
• More care-free, living-for-the-moment.
• Hedonistic—self-gratification above all
else.
• Instead of Progressive crusades, people
want to enjoy life.
Causes of the New Culture
• 1. Disillusionment with WWI and the
Progressive era (backlash).
– Ezra Pound—Men had died, “For an old bitch gone in
the teeth. For a botched civilization.”
• 2. Change from 60hr work week to 40 = more
free time.
• 3. Modern technology—Auto, Radio, Movies.
Automobile
• By 1927, Americans owned 4 out of every
5 cars in the world.
• Automobile manufacturing became
America’s biggest industry during the
1920s.
• Also boom for steel, gasoline, glass, and
rubber.
How the Car Transformed
American Culture
• People began taking day-trips.
• People could live in suburbs outside of the cities where
they worked.
• People took cross-country vacations.
• Young people took joy-rides and used cars for dating.
• Many consumers bought cars on credit.
Buying Habits
• In the 1920s, Americans started buying things
like cars, furniture, appliances, radios, etc. on
credit.
• Chain Stores that carried many items in one
place began to dominate the retail sector.
– Sears and Roebuck, JC Penny, Safeway, A&P.
• Advertising became a mass media.
Radio
• KDKA of Pittsburgh was the 1st radio station
(1920).
• Soon radio networks (such as NBC and CBS)
began to form.
• News, sports, music, and variety shows.
• In 1929, $852 million worth of radios sold.
• Radio is most responsible for creating a national
mass culture.
Movies
• Movie industry takes off in the 20s—it becomes
the 5th largest business in the US (100 million
people per week).
• The Jazz Singer, starring AL Jolson, was the 1st
talking picture.
• Air Conditioning.
• Like radio, helped spread a mass culture.
Sports
• With more leisure time and the mass media of
radio, sports became popular in the 20s.
• Baseball’s biggest star was Babe Ruth.
• In football, it was Red Grange. In one game he
had TD runs of 95, 67, 55, and 45 yards the first
4-times he carried the ball.
• Boxing—Jack Dempsey.
The Biggest Hero
• Aviator Charles Lindbergh— “The Lone
Eagle.”
• Became the 1st person to fly nonstop
across the Atlantic.
• Plane was the Spirit of St. Louis.
Music
• Big Bands and Jazz became the most
popular music.
• Louis Armstrong became the most popular
performer.
• New dances such as the Charleston.
Literature
• The 1920s were the beginning of the “Golden Age” of
American Literature.
• Many of the writers were disillusioned with America and
WWI.
• The themes of their works dealt with alienation,
disillusionment, and cynicism.
• Many of these writers left America to live in Paris.
• Others lived in Greenwich Village in New York.
“The Lost Generation”
• Gertrude Stein called the expatriates “the
Lost Generation.”
• Writers included: William Faulkner,
– John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, and
Sinclair Lewis.
– Literary Critic = H.L Mencken “Booboisie”
– Theatre = Eugene O’Neill.
Harlem Renaissance
• A flowering of Black Culture that was centered in
Harlem.
• Included literature, music, theatre, and art.
• Dealt primarily with celebrating blackness and
the notion of being black in America.
• Key figures were: Zora Neale Hurston,
Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen.
Freud and Sex
• Sigmund Freud was a doctor from Vienna, Austria who pioneered
psychoanalysis.
• Argued that sexual repression was responsible for a variety of
nervous and emotional illnesses.
• His works became popular in America during the 1920s.
• During the 20s, attitudes towards sex began to change—Sexuality
came into the open.
• Dating replaced courting.
• This was especially true for women.
Flappers
• A look and an attitude.
• Short skirt, bobbed hair, no hips or breasts.
• Wore Make-up.
• Smoked and drank.
• Not shocked or offended by lewd jokes.